The Challenger Sales Book
The Challenger Sales Book Series
Our best-selling Challenger sales book series — The Challenger Sale, Effortless Experience, and The Challenger Customer — is based on ongoing, exhaustive research across multiple industries and geographies.
We wrote the books on what makes sellers win.
Our studies show that classic relationship building is a losing approach for winning deals, especially when it comes to selling complex, large-scale B2B solutions and services. These three books propose new ways that sales and customer service teams can have more productive interactions with buyers, leading to sustainable sales growth.
The Challenger Sale
The Challenger Sale reveals the secret to sales success for selling complex B2B solutions: it’s challenging customers, not building relationships. This book offers sales leaders a new playbook for delivering distinctive purchase experiences that drive higher levels of customer loyalty and greater growth.
You’ll learn:
- The five distinct profiles of sales reps
- What skills, behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes sellers need to become high performers
- How to teach customers something new and valuable about how to compete in their market
- How to tailor your sales message to your customer’s needs and objectives so it sticks with them
- How to push for agreement on value, defeat indecision inertia, and take control of the sale
The Challenger Customer
The Challenger Customer is a reality check. Simply being a Challenger seller isn’t enough; your success or failure also depends on who you challenge. Readers will get insights on identifying and engaging customer stakeholders.
You’ll learn:
- Why marketing and sales teams are going after the wrong buyers
- Why buying dysfunction exists
- What makes the seven types of B2B buyers tick
- How to identify Mobilizers, the buying influences who can enable change and build consensus around the problem, solution, and vendor selection
- How to use commercial insight to show that the pain of the same is greater than the pain of change
- How to equip Mobilizers with the insights and tools they need to get to yes
- How to break and build mental models to bring about change
The Effortless Experience
The follow-up to the first Challenger sales book, The Effortless Experience, takes our search for truth to the world of customer service and turns conventional wisdom on its head: most customers don’t want to be “wowed”; they want an effortless experience. It’s a fascinating journey that explores what really makes customers loyal — and disloyal.
You’ll learn:
- Why customer service interactions are four times more likely to drive disloyalty than loyalty
- What builds customer loyalty: how well a company delivers on its basic promises and solves day-to-day problems
- How to make self-service channels “sticky”
- How to solve the next problem before it happens
- How to engineer a more positive customer experience by controlling the problem and getting to a quick solution
Recognition for the Challenger Book Series
The Challenger sales books are globally recognized for their significant contribution to the world of sales, marketing, and customer service leadership thinking, and they continue to receive high praise and accolades. Here are some given to the Challenge sales book series by prestigious organizations:
2022
- LIT Video Book produces The Challenger Sale on its groundbreaking video platform
2021
- Amazon lists The Challenger Sale as #6 in its Best Sellers in Sales & Selling
2020
- Book Authority lists The Challenger Sale and The Challenger Customer on its 100 Best Sales Books of All Time
- Rajat Chawla (Top #16 Global CX Influencer) features The Effortless Experience in his list of 30 Best Customer Experience Books You Must Read
- Ring DNA lists The Challenger Sale as #7 on its list of The Best Sales Books of All Time
- Sales Hacker lists The Challenger Sale (#2) and The Challenger Customer on its list of The 104 Best Sales Books in 2020
2019
- Forbes features Challenger in Three Selling Strategies to Empower Your Salespeople
- HubSpot features The Challenger Sale in its list of 17 Must-Read Sales Books for Beginners
- LiveHelpNow features The Effortless Experience in its list of 12 Books That Will Turn You Into a Customer Experience Superstar
- Smartbug features Challenger in 7 Sales Enablement Blogs You Should Follow Now
2018
- HubSpot does a standalone piece on The Challenger Sale, 5-Minute Summary of The Challenger Sale Book Your Boss Told You to Read
- Gong.io features The Challenger Sale as #1 and The Challenger Customer as #2 on its list of The 58 Best Sales Books of All Time (The Ultimate Master List)
Praise for The Challenger Sale book from sales industry leaders
“There is a healthy dose of constructive tension throughout this brilliant book — tension that will bring insight and clarity into how customers buy today and how your sales team must sell. If you are seeking to raise the bar in your sales organization, The Challenger Sale is a must-read.”
Tom Meek, vice president, sales, Henkel Adhesives Technologies
“The Challenger Sale shows you how to maintain control of the complex sale. The output of this superbly researched body of work is that you will know how to better differentiate your organization, your offering, and yourself in the mind of the customer.”
Adrian Norton, vice president, sales, Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals
“The amazing thing is that the Challenger sales rep has been hiding in plain sight all these years. The Challenger Sale breaks the winning elements of this powerful approach into a set of teachable skills that can take even a top sales team to a new level of results delivery.”
Dan James, former chief sales officer, DuPont
“This is a must-read book for every sales professional. The authors’ groundbreaking research explains how the rules for selling have changed — and what to do about it. If you don’t want to be left behind, don’t miss this innovative book that provides the new formula for selling success.”
Ken Revenaugh, vice president, sales operations, Oakwood Temporary Housing
“The history of sales has been one of steady progress interrupted by a few real breakthroughs that have changed the whole direction of the profession. These breakthroughs, marked by radical new thinking and dramatic improvements in sales results, have been rare…. Which brings me to The Challenger Sale and the work of the Sales Executive Council…. On the face of it, their research has all the initial signs that it may be game-changing…. My advice is this: Read it, think about it, implement it. You, and your organization, will be glad you did.”
Professor Neil Rackham, author of SPIN Selling
What are you waiting for?
Transform your sales team.
The best companies grow, and grow fast, by challenging customers, not by serving them.
